1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera, or an entire camera system, which can efficiently store and efficiently read out photographic data in a memory device built into the camera.
In this specification, "camera system" means a system which includes, apart from the film, a lens, a stop, a microcomputer, and an electronic information storage device within a camera body, and a photographic data readout device.
2. Description of the Related Art
After a camera has taken photographs under various conditions, the necessity arises to know the photographic conditions in detail. To satisfy this kind of demand, the photographic conditions, comprising exposure time and aperture, have been stored for each photographic frame in a memory device comprising a semiconductor memory.
Because the photographic data can easily be printed out when read out from the memory device into a personal computer, a detailed investigation of the photographic data is possible while a photographer looks at the photographs to which the photographic data relate.
A block diagram of a prior art camera system is shown in FIG. 1. The camera 1 has a microcomputer 2 which controls the operation of the camera, an operating member 3 of the camera 1, such as a release button, a display device 4 which performs a display of, for example, the photographic frame number of the film, a display of the date and display of the state of the battery, and a memory device 5 for photographic data. A personal computer 6 transfers various data to and from the camera 1.
When operating the operating member 3 and performing a photographic process, the photographic data are stored in the memory device 5 and a display can be output, as required, to the personal computer 6.
FIG. 2 shows an operational flow chart relating to the process of storing photographic data in the camera system 1 of FIG. 1. In FIG. 2, the camera 1 detects, in step S101, whether or not the release button (for example, the operating member 3 shown in FIG. 1) has been depressed. When it has been detected that the release button has been depressed, the routing proceeds to step S102. In step S102, it is determined whether or not there is sufficient time for the memory device 5 (shown in FIG. 1), to store the photographic data. When there is sufficient time, the routine proceeds to step S104. When there is not sufficient time, namely in the case that the memory device 5 is full, the process advances to step S103, and a warning display is displayed and, in addition, the release action is inhibited.
In step 104, it is determined whether or not there is film loaded into the camera. Here, the film counter showing "E" indicates that there is no film loaded into the camera. When the film counter is other than "E", in step S105, the shutter is released. When the release has ended, proceeding to step S106, the operation of film windup is commenced. Then in step S107, the photographic data are stored in the memory device 5. Next, in step S108, the winding of one frame of film is detected and the windup process is ended.
Then, the remaining capacity of the memory device 5 is calculated in step 109. When the remaining capacity is less than a predetermined value, proceeding to step S110, this information is stored in a predetermined portion of the memory device 5, and in step S111, a warning is displayed. If the remaining capacity in step S109 is greater than the predetermined value, the routing returns to step S101, the routine for discriminating a release signal.
If the display of the film counter is "E" in step S104, the process proceeds to step S112, and film loading is performed. Normally, after the completion of film loading by the "easy load" method, the value of the film number is incremented by one in step S113 and stored in the memory device 5 in step S114. Next, the process proceeds to step S109, and the remaining capacity of the memory device is determined.
The camera is normally equipped with a large capacity memory device, more than is necessary to store all the photographic data, even in severe conditions and software is incorporated to perform information processing of the photographic data for this capacity.
When memory devices of different memory capacities are loaded into a conventional camera at the same time, because it is necessary to change the software to correspond to the hardware of the camera, there is the disadvantage that the price of the camera becomes high. Moreover, in these circumstances, outputting photographic data of the camera to an external source similarly has become a problem. The camera, or camera system, of the present invention overcomes these problems.